Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German EditionWeininger, Otto
Philosophy
Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition
Weininger, Otto
Character; Sex; Sex (Psychology); Sexual ethics
This would be the extreme case of the action of all the sympathetic and
antipathetic relations between human beings (leaving out of account
social relations in their narrowest sense, which are merely the
safeguards of communities) which are not included in the law of sexual
affinity. As K generally increases with the strength of congenital
relationship, A has a greater value when the individuals are of the same
nationality than when they belong to different nationalities. The value
of _f^t_ is great in this case, and one can investigate its
fluctuations, as, for instance, when two domestic animals of different
species are in association; at first it usually stands for violent
enmity, or fear of each other (and A has a negative value), whilst later
on a friendship may come about.
When K = 0 in the formula
K . _f^t_
A = ---------,
α - β
then A = 0, which means that between two living beings of origin too
remote there may be no trace of sexual attraction.
The provisions of the criminal statute-books, however, in reference to
sodomy and bestiality show plainly that even in the case of very remote
species K has a value greater than nothing. The formula may apply to two
individuals not only not of the same species, but even not of the same
order.
It is a new theory that the union of male and female organisms is no
mere matter of chance, but is guided by a definite law; and the actual
complexities which I have merely suggested show the need for complete
investigation into the mysterious nature of sexual attraction.
The experiments of Wilhelm Pfeffer have shown that the male cells of
many cryptogams are naturally attracted not merely by the female cells,
but also by substances which they have come in contact with under
natural conditions, or which have been introduced to them
experimentally, in the latter case the substances being sometimes of a
kind with which they could not possibly have come in contact, except
under the conditions of experiment. Thus the male cells of ferns are
attracted not only by the malic acid secreted naturally by the
archegonia, but by synthetically prepared malic acid, whilst the male
cells of mosses are attracted either by the natural acid of the female
cells or by acid prepared from cane sugar. A male cell, which, we know
not how, is influenced by the degree of concentration of a solution,
moves towards the most concentrated part of the fluid. Pfeffer named
such movements “chemotactic” and coined the word “chemotropism” to
include these and many other asexual cases of motion stimulated by
chemical bodies. There is much to support the view that the attraction
exercised by females on males which perceive them at a distance by sense
organs is to be regarded as analogous in certain respects with
chemotropism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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